Author: wahmbahmsahmiam

I know, I know, I’ve been MIA again! Sorry! More on that subject later. But for now I had to share this recipe with you. So here’s to my fellow allergy freaks! 😉

So, due to some new found health “goals”, I had an IGg food sensitivy test done and the results were crazy to say the least. Of all the things it revealed, the single hardest thing I’ve had to give up (even harder than gluten, which I’ve been without for 15 years) is ONIONS!!! I had a pantry full of delicious seasonings and guess what? 95% of them contained onions! Giving up cooking with onions wouldn’t be so difficult in and of itself if all I had to do was stop buying onions, but NOOO, that’s not enough. So here I am embarking on a new journey of making all my own spice blends from scratch. I will share others as I create them!

I pulled this one together last night for dinner, made a big batch and thankfully it was a big hit with all my boys. Score!

I did measurements in tablespoons so it would be easy to multiply depending on the batch size you want to make. I did a double batch and it was enough to fill a half pint mason jar plus make dinner last night. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

In my effort to to find quasi healthy foods and snacks for myself and more importantly my picky eater, I decided to start making protein/fiber shakes to satisfy the sweet tooth yet not fill little one with total junk and stave off hunger. As you may know, I like to drink Choffy 100% brewed chocolate. What you may not know is that you can use your Choffy grounds for much more than brewing. This is great as you get more bang for your buck when you can reuse the brewed grounds PLUS you get the benefit of “eating” the whole bean! This is just one of many recipes, but it was a big hit when we tried it out yesterday!

First off, I want to apologize for the weird breaks (or lack there of) on this post. Every time I edit this post to separate the ingredients and different methods of preparing, I hit save and everything scrunches back together with no space between sentences or different lines between methods. ARGH!!!

Does anyone else have a picky toddler in their house??? Or are you having a hard time behaving while trying to eat healthy and/or lose weight? How about both? (Or is that just me…) Well, I don’t know what it is, but I can do just fine with limited sweets until I suddenly decide it’s time to get serious about losing some weight. Then, all of a sudden, I want something sweet every time I open my mouth. UGH!

So, today I resolved to make a “healthy” sweet snack to satisfy all the sweet tooths in this house. Enter, the protein packed peanut butter cups. You could easily substitute the peanut butter with almond butter. I just didn’t happen to have any in the house.

A friend of mine recently started selling Arbonne products. I’ve been searching high and low for a good protein powder that did not contain silicon dioxide or artificial sweeteners. I went to her Arbonne launch party and, FINALLY, I found it! Eureka!! Her knowledgeable leader was there to share some pointers and I was so grateful as she introduced me to the idea of making protein snacks with the protein powder. (I’m sure someone is reading this thinking, DUH! But this was an idea I hadn’t come across yet and it seemed perfect for my situation.) Even better, I can add the fiber powder as well for my veggie and fruit refusing two year old! This morning I tried searching Pinterest for recipes to make the protein bars, as per the suggestion of the Arbonne leader. Everything I found contained oats or rice cereal, neither of which I currently have since I’m really trying to minimize grain intake right now. So I decided to just throw together my own little recipe and hope for the best!

Here’s what I came up with (mind you the measurements aren’t exact. Measuring cups? WHAT?! 😉 )

Combine everything but the chocolate chips in a bowl and mix thoroughly. I stirred in one dry ingredient at a time into the peanut butter. Melt chocolate chips on low heat in a small saucepan. Using a 1 Tbsp scoop, make balls with peanut butter mixture. This should yield 20-24 balls (I can’t say for sure as little man and I were snacking on it as we went!) You can roll the balls between your hands to pack it down and keep in a ball shape or smash into “peanut butter cups”. Dip in melted chocolate and cool on wax paper. We put it in the freezer to expedite the process. Oh and we just dipped and ate a couple with warm melted chocolate!

Thequickway:

Since I didn’t actually measure the chocolate chips, I didn’t quite melt enough and didn’t want to spend anymore time on it. So here’s what I did with the final 2 balls (you can do this for a short cut version if you want)

Mix chocolate chips into peanut butter mixture. Form balls or patties and freeze.

Thefinaloutcome:

These were a HUGE hit! The only thing I can say for sure, chunky peanut butter or an extra tbsp of almond flour or so would firm it up a little more. If you do the short cut version, you will definitely want to adapt it or keep frozen until ready to eat, otherwise it’s a little soft. Still awesome, but it would be harder to handle if you took this in your go bag for a mid day snack. It may be more of a floppy disk! If you dip it in the melted chocolate, the chocolate holds it together, but it melts when handled just like “real” peanut butter cups.

First of all, I want to apologize for the belated announcement! Secondly, for some reason only one comment posted even though I approved the others. So if you don’t see your comment on the giveaway post, I doubly apologize! Forgive me? On to the announcement:

Congratulations to Benjilou! Your workshop bundle is on it’s way!

I’m sneaking this post in while I’m supposed to be making dinner so it’s short and sweet! Here’s to a healthy year!

Join me on a journey! I’m about to try a sugar detox of sorts! In honor of this, I’m giving away a sugar detox friendly freezer meal bundle.

When you meal plan with Wildtree you are getting all natural and organic ingredients. The Figure Friendly bundle typically includes the Taco Seasoning Blend. However, I am substituting the Fajita Blend in this giveaway. Why!? While Wildtree’s Taco Seasoning is AMAZING and free of all the bad stuff you see in the store packets today, it does contain corn (non-GMO of course) which I will be avoiding during my sugar detox. Join me on this healthy journey!

Enter the Giveaway below. Share with friends. Order the bundle here and have some friends over for your own freezer meal workshop. Add these items to your cart: For Garlic Lover’s Gift Set, Natural Grapeseed Oil, and Fajita Seasoning Blend. Email me for your recipes and instructions!

Okay, so this doesn’t exactly fall into my healthy, non-GMO super duper goodness snack idea…but in the 80/20 rule of life, I created this on a whim at snack time for my kids! And it only took 30 seconds to make! If anyone knows of an organic and/or non-GMO Chex like cereal, let me know. (Same goes for Marshmallow bits!) I know other cereals in general would work too so feel free to adapt to your personal preference. Ooh, I just had an amazing idea: this would be great with gluten free granola as well! Mmm…anyway!

Ugh, I haven’t been doing my freezer meals lately and boy oh boy am I regretting it! Although I still managed to make quite a delicious and simple meal last night! (It’s like enchiladas without getting your hands dirty.) I made due with ingredients I had on hand and it was DELICIOUS! There are lots of variations you could make with this recipe as well. While we had chicken, you could make it with beef or pork as well. You could add black beans, cream cheese, just use your imagination or let your pantry do the talking (that’s whay I did)!

Preheat oven to 350 °. Meanwhile heat Grapeseed oil in 10″ skillet and add chicken. While chicken is cooking, dice onion. Pour 1/4 bottle of enchilada sauce in 9×13 pan or deep baking dish. Once chicken is cooked, cube or shred using two forks to pull meat apart. In baking dish, layer 2- 8″ (or 4- 6″ tortillas), 1/2 of the chicken and onion and 1/3 of the cheese. Repeat with 1/4 of enchilada sauce, tortillas ect. Top with 2 (or 4) tortillas and the last of the enchilada sauce and cheese. Bake for 25-30 minutes. I like my cheese browned on top so I broiled the last 2 minutes. Enjoy!

If you are going to add black beans, combine it with your meat and layer meat mixture accordingly. If you are going to add cream cheese, make sure it is softened and combine 1 1/3 cup of shreded cheese with it. Spread on the two middle layers.

Say whaaa…? Okay, so this is more like a “Mound”, but I have some great ideas to try that would make it more “Almond Joy”-ish. They’re included in the recipe. I just thought Almond Joy oatmeal sounded catchier. So, my new favorite beverage is Choffy brewed chocolate. I love it so much I can’t stand to throw the grounds away. And now I’ve found the perfect answer to that dilemma. Use the spent grounds for cooking, baking, gardening…the possibilities are endless. Anywho, here’s the recipe for a healthy breakfast treat:

Boil water. Stir in oats and cover. Cook for specified time according to package directions (10-15 min or 3-5 min if using quick cooking oats). Stir in Choffy grounds and Hearty Oatmeal Mix In (and almond meal if you are using it). Let stand for a few minutes to cool and allow flavors to develop. Add milk of choice if desired.

Hello, strangers! So I jumped into the whole blog idea with great intentions, but no clue. Thus why I have been MIA. I spent the summer doing things and taking pictures so I could blog about them and then BAM here we are headed into winter with no blog posts since June. My apologies! This post will be short and sweet as I do not want today’s “real” post to be categorized with this reintroduction/apology/ excuse post. I’m looking forward to sharing some yummy recipes and fun DIY projects with you all!

If you just flashed back to 1990 and have an annoying jingle stuck in your head, welcome to my club! Sorry to enlist you. I can’t get that song out of my head and need some company in crazy land! Bwahaha! Okay, back to the good stuff…

The following before and after picture shows about 7.5 lbs of chicken turned into 5 Freezer Meals which fed this family of 3 (technically 4 but the two kiddos eat about the equivalent of one adult) about 9 meals! So it’s safe to say each meal (main course) cost around $6-7. That’s less than $3 person! Beat that “fast food”! And really the 45 minutes it took me to prepare is well worth the 3 hours it saved me during the busy week. That’s assuming I spend about 20 minutes average preparing (cutting, seasoning, and cleaning up). I LOVE not having to clean up after prepping more than once a month!!! Bleh! 😛